The Slow Death of Enmity
by Zankokuno
Summary: Sakura finds the most unexpected ally in her quest to bring Sasuke home, and fights hard against a change of heart toward her enemy. Itachi finds himself wanting more than just absolution from his new helper. Both find themselves diverted from their cause
1. Wax Winged Weasel, part i

**MAJOR SPOILERS:** This fic contains massive spoilers of the events **up to** **Chapter 404** (ie; a few releases after the conclusion to the Hugely Epic Truth About Itachi chapters). So, if you haven't read up to there, then go catch up on Naruto now, yes _now_, because it's pure awesome.

Disclaimer: All characters and trademarks (as well as the canon events from the manga that I've built this fanfic around) in Naruto are © Kishimoto Masashi and the mighty empire SHUEISHA Publishing Inc.

The rest of the fic is mine. Ye who take from it any more than idle inspiration for works entirely your own shall face retribution from the Black Path of general doujinshi, in the form of a switching, then an embarassingly naggy and mothering lecture over unreasonably awful-tasting tea, about if you're going to plagiarize, don't plagiarize something of tiny significance and no profit like fanfiction. Ah- matte, matte... let me rephrase that... Don't plagiarize, folks.

* * *

The Slow Death of Enmity

Chapter I

Wax-Winged Weasel, part i

* * *

Weary, so weary. Day by grinding day, Itachi felt more and more, then more still, the weariness gnawing through his bones to the pit of his soul. He was aware, and embittered by it, that the crawl of his exhaustion no longer even moved with urgency, or any purpose at all, had not done so for a long time. Though why should it, when it had already reached its goal all those years ago? Now it simply moved back and forth, - as if pacing for lack of any meaningful task to perform - through to his core, then meandering outward again to seep out through his skin, only to invade it once more for its next journey inward. Young though he was, Uchiha Itachi felt old as the sun. Vaguely he wondered if Hidan could relate to this sensation. No, the zealot would probably just hoot at that, and berate him for being carefree. _Too much spare time, indeed. I contemplate as if I've all the time in the world._

His partner had stopped, and was eyeing him warily. Itachi realized he had thought aloud. "Frivolous." The clipped word seemed to him something hastily shoved into the silence, and he added more smoothly, "When idle thoughts come to me, I begin to wonder if Akatsuki is dawdling."

His gills all that moved, those unnerving, unblinking eyes studied him for a few more moments, then - satisfied that nothing was off, Itachi supposed - Kisame gave a short grunt and continued jumping. Itachi followed. In long loping strides from branch to branch high as the two were in the canopy of Konoha's bordering forests, footing was still more than sure on tree limbs thicker than a grown man's body, even for someone with slightly blurred vision.

The Uchiha found it irritating that he'd felt obligated to explain himself to that oaf. _Explain myself! Hah!_ That he had called it that almost angered him. It succeeded after a moment, and he felt the familiar disgust with himself wash over him anew. His foot slipped short of a branch. _Another fine example that the air Uchiha Itachi breathes is exhaled as lies,_ his revulsion bantered like an old comrade, in a tone that was theatrically grandiose. He realized then that he was falling through air, and at that moment, hit the ground. A choked gasp of "Spleen!" escaped him before the impact tore breath from his lungs, and he dimly imagined a girl's trilling laughter that quickly cut off.

Kisame had stopped again, well ahead, and was looking around. While his partner's search remained horizontal, Itachi took the opportunity to cover up his blunder. Still waiting for respiration to come back, he scrambled haphazardly to his feet, mercilessly stilling legs that shook like gel from the shock. Itachi wheezed his lungs back into working order, again imagining someone giggling at it. Then, looking around to see if anyone had witnessed the mighty Uchiha in his vulnerable moment, he discovered Kisame was already in front of him, grinning like an idiot. A snide remark always seemed to wait behind that lipless smile, but it never came out. Itachi wanted to cuff the bastard. He felt like an old man just then, the kind that stubbornly pretends he's still limber as a youth. That grin seemed to be saying, "Give up and go die, ojii-chan." He wanted to box Kisame's ears, but the goddamned shark-man probably didn't even have any. Pale gold and purple flitted briefly in his peripheral vision, among the slowly dwindling kaleidoscopic motes that had flooded his sight after the fall. Aching like something ancient and knees still wobbly, Itachi snapped a most irritable "I'm fine!"

His colleague had caught him in moments of weakness often enough before, but even though - for some reason Itachi never understood, yet was nonetheless eternally grateful for - Kisame had never told a soul in the syndicate of this frailty, what must have been Uchiha pride still rankled every time at even one person knowing he was not infallible. It was his dirty secret from Akatsuki: that he was stretching himself past his limits for a purpose of his own, and hoping it was fulfilled before he ended up killing himself. It was a race against time, and his time was growing short.

***

Haruno Sakura gathered herbs growing between the great roots of a colossal tree with a will. She did everything with a will, and this most especially. Tsunade's teachings she had been drinking like life water, and she already had an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants - medicines and poisons alike - along with the proper way to grow and gather each of them, and to prepare medicines: the most effective method of intake varied from plant to plant. But huge as it was on its own, the botanical aspect was just one facet of an iryonin's curriculum, with the others just as extensive and meticulously detailed or more. She was learning so fast; faster than Tsunade, she had heard some senior medinin and hospital staff say- words not intended to reach her ears, most likely. But it wasn't fast enough for Sakura. The need became greater with every day that passed. A need to heal, and to learn more, so that she could heal better and faster than those she cared for could become hurt.

It wasn't just about Sasuke anymore either. In fact, Sakura wondered how much about him it was at all these days. That moment, the one that had frozen her blood, and held her eyes open against the sun, despite it. That eternity that had sped by in a second, where he had gazed down at them from the outcrop where the rocks had caved. From atop a mountain, it had seemed, and with such a way about him that he'd be a god and known as one were he in robes or rags. Such a way as to make the distance between them more palpable than infinity. That moment, and the moments that had followed, all were still clear as life in her mind, but lately it seemed his features were blurred.

It should have shaken Sakura that her reason to become stronger was becoming indistinct, but it just... didn't. He had ceased to be the sole reason she advanced. There was Naruto now. And the patients she tended to at the hospital, whether they were war-wounded ANBU, or fool chuunin full of sake, fallen from trees, and still in loud, raucous song after they'd been hauled onto a litter- including that pack of tokubetsu jounin who should know better. However they got themselves injured though, they were still her patients, Sakura knew, busied as she was cleaning away the remains of a stalk she had crushed to pulp in her fist. She even found herself smiling at the academy's new generation, proud to be part of what kept them safe and well as they grew tall and strong like she finally was. Everyone in Konohagakure was her reason now, Haruno Sakura realized, and for their sake it never seemed she was learning fast enough.

Ino popped out from behind a tree just then. She had tagged along with Sakura, but mostly all she had done so far was idly pluck wildflowers, arranging them into an attractive bouquet within her hand as she gathered them one by one. She appeared to have finished the one she carried, as the flowers had been tied off at the stems with a thin piece of vine. "I never believed your stories about drunks climbing trees until now! I just saw two of them! Well, only one fell, but the other guy's face looks totally sickly. I think you should come check them out." Ino looked more excited as she spoke than concerned. Sakura gave her a blank stare. "Maybe they'll spar with us after you heal them!~" Ino chirped, with the beginnings of a mischievous smile.

"I might decide to skip the healing part." Sakura grated, standing up and only somewhat carefully stuffing the herbs she'd collected into her pouch. "Who is it this time?"

"No one I know."

"Ah, well. Can't be helped either way, I guess. Take me to them. Hopefully nothing's broken and I can heal the guy without having to admit him. I'll dose the other one for his stomach: to make him throw up all that alcohol, that is."

Ino laughed delightedly. "That's sooo devious! You know, you actually make this medic-nin stuff look kinda cool sometimes."

Sakura looked the other way to hide her small smile, making it look like she was scanning the surroundings. There was no way she could allow Ino see how much it meant to feel she measured up to her girlhood rival. "That's not the point." she mumbled.

Once they arrived at the scene under the cover of a distant tree, Sakura was surprised to say the least when she peeked out from behind it. "Ino-pig, you're an airhead! Don't you know what those coats mean!?"

"The hell did you ju-" Ino's squawking ceased to register. A quick glance at the blue skin - "Sickly" definitely fell _far_ short of describing it - of one of those heavily dressed men had just told Sakura all she needed to know who the other one was. In that instant, it became all about Sasuke once again.

Her tone became dangerously tranquil. "Ino. Go home."

"Whaa?"

Sakura didn't turn her gaze away from the two Akatsuki- the _one._ Run back to the village as fast as you can and tell Tsunade-shishou to come here herself, with Shizune-san too if she's in the room."

In an explosion of flowers, Ino ran. Like the wind, Sakura was relieved to see, ponytail an arrow behind her. Half her words had been unspoken, but Ino's haste and the mess of petals said she'd heard them all. Bicker though they did, a friend like that was a great help in situations like these. The other half had been, "They're dangerous Ino, so pull one away. But I've got a bone to pick with the other. Lead Hokage-sama astray for a little, so I can rough this guy up some first." She damn well hoped Ino had heard that last part. Sakura was almost certain her target would be the one to stay behind, and as the last of the petals touched earth, she left hiding and rushed at Uchiha Itachi, fist full of chakra.

***

"SHANNARO!!"

Kisame made to draw Samehada against the attacker, but Itachi stilled him with a slight shake of the head. Sure enough, the girl paid him and his monstrous sword no mind. Itachi sidestepped her with little effort. He heard the ground behind him being torn apart. If that had hit him.... _Quick for her age. Very._ Eyes still on her - she was slashing at him with a kunai now - he addressed his partner, "I'll handle this one. She hid her satisfaction poorly, and he almost changed his mind. Discretion should be observed to keep the identity of one's targets ambiguous, and in this case, maintained even after successfully engaging them. He almost chuckled; she hadn't hidden that from the start. "You go kill the messenger." The flash of fear across her features was brief, and miniscule besides, but Itachi caught it. Solemn confidence was what replaced it. Unlimbering the sword from his back, Kisame complied, and Itachi found himself alone with the fierce girl, now blocking her kunai jabs with a knife of his own.

* * *

-END CHAPTER I-

Please review it! I'm eager to find out how my first submission was received!~


	2. Wax Winged Weasel, part ii

**MAJOR SPOILERS:** This fic contains massive spoilers of the events **up to Chapter 404** (ie; a little bit past the conclusion to the Hugely Epic Truth About Itachi chapters). So, if you haven't read up to there, then go catch up on Naruto now, yes now, because it's pure awesome.

Disclaimer: All characters and trademarks (as well as the canon events from the manga that I've built this fanfic around) in Naruto are © Kishimoto Masashi and the mighty empire SHUEISHA Publishing Inc.

The rest of the fic is mine. Ye who take from it any more than idle inspiration for works entirely your own shall face retribution from the Black Path of general doujinshi, in the form of a switching, then an embarassingly naggy and mothering lecture over unreasonably awful-tasting tea, about if you're going to plagiarize, don't plagiarize something of tiny significance and no profit like fanfiction. Ah- matte, matte... let me rephrase that... Don't plagiarize, folks.

* * *

The Slow Death of Enmity

Chapter II

Wax-Winged Weasel, part ii

* * *

Amused but hardly entertained, Itachi continued to swat away this girl's kunai. This girl whose eyes held enough hate to be knives themselves. Hate for him. There was no room for doubt. He'd felt her glare well before she had charged at him; at the very moment when her careless chatter in his presence had made the sudden shift to low, too-even whispers. Focused. If Itachi had given chase to the other girl instead, this one would surely have ignored Kisame and come after him anyway. He'd thought of doing that, but only in passing. He was actually quite curious as to why this girl despised him so. _Why else?_ Yes, it must be that.

The obvious contrast between his casual deflections and her heated attack finally got to her enough to make her speak. "Bastard. You could _never_ know how much he's suffered." she snarled, confirming Itachi's suspicion. "I'll make you suffer!"

"Ohh? Quite confident, to think you can kill me. For nothing short of that can be called suffering." That did nothing to faze her, but perhaps something else would... "You would take that away from him?" Her blurred motions faltered for only an instant, but that was enough. It had affected her. Perhaps she was approachable, at least about this matter.

"I don't care if he never forgives me!" The stabs at him had a new intensity. There was an opening to reason with her, but she'd still be troublesome to approach, it seemed. "Now that you're in front of me...."

"You mustn't." He jumped backwards, but she closed the distance as he did, fist pulled back to deliver another one of those beastly chakra punches. Only one person could have taught her that, Itachi thought wryly. He hoped Kisame caught the other girl. Tsunade would be a big pain to deal with if he didn't.

"Shut up!"

"There's something you need to hear, girl."

"And I don't wanna listen! So shut the hell up!" Her strikes doubled in speed. She may be dangerous to him after all. He remembered just then the report that it had been a pink-haired kunoichi who helped the old Suna puppetmaster Chiyo kill Akasuna no Sasori, her grandson. Even Itachi had only ever suspected how little of Sasori was still human.... This girl had forced him to reveal it, and had ground every trump card he possessed into dust by acting as Chiyo's puppet. Itachi highly doubted he could be killed by her, but it might just be that in his condition, she could compromise him enough to make him easy prey for... others. He would only allow one man to slay him. He really wished that man would hurry up and find him.

This was going nowhere. Itachi activated his Sharingan and used his crow-form genjutsu, while he himself alighted on a low branch above the girl. He wanted to keep some distance from her and that kunai while he talked. It was only a matter of moments before he felt a knifepoint prick the small of his back anyway. Biting off a curse, he jumped back to the ground before it could sink into his skin. He'd not even opened his mouth yet! How impertinent this girl was. No choice, then. If normal genjutsu would not work.... Itachi turned back to the branch he'd leapt from, facing the young woman as she was bearing down on him with her earth-shattering fist, and engulfed her in Tsukuyomi.

***

Hoshigaki Kisame followed the purple streak ahead of him patiently. For all her brave determination, he still smelled fear from her. He savored it. Perhaps it would grow if he toyed with her. He started swinging Samehada at massive low branches as he passed them, cleaving them away in one stroke. The roaring crashes as they hit the undergrowth were pleasing to the ear. _There's a monster chasing you, little brat!_ Laughing aloud, Kisame bounded across the branches just a little faster, gaining on his prey bit by slightest bit. She wasn't frightened much more by his noisy pursuit, he was disappointed to find. _Your "Will of Fire" is my pain in the ass!_Just then he received a call from Pain, to join the extraction of the Three Tails. Kisame explained the situation only to find out Kakuzu and Hidan had already been forced into a battle of their own as well. And not with two teenage girls, Akatsuki's "leader" added briskly. "Then tell them to go nuts and make a quick job of it so they can go instead, because Itachi and I aren't freaking immortals. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he can't go either. The one he's fighting is one seriously crazy bitch. Don't even bother asking him." A sense of great annoyance was conveyed to him at that. Itachi must have blatantly ignored Pain's contact, or even cut it off somehow. Either way, Kisame had extra leverage in the organization that he could use if Pain persisted. Calling on Itachi first, let alone separately. That puffed-up messenger boy obviously didn't know where the real power lay in Akatsuki. Luckily a display of authority wasn't necessary.

_VERY WELL._ The humorless voice left it at that and ended its invasion of Kisame's thoughts, semi-irritated grumbles of how Kakukzu would complain about losing his thirty-five million ryo reaching him before Pain's presence withdrew itself completely. _Good riddance._ The girl was staring over her shoulder at him, as if waiting for him to do a trick.

"Yeah what!?" Kisame growled. She snorted and continued to watch where she was going. He really hated teenagers.

After a while she said cattily, "Whatever your buddy did to piss her off, she'll definitely make him pay. One way or another." It was Kisame's turn to scoff.

They were closing in on the outskirts of Konoha now, and just as he made to take a great lunge over the last few metres between them and catch the girl, Kisame saw a large shape heading straight in their direction, and fast. _Aw, shit!_ He hid himself immediately, bristling at a smugly victorious backward glance at him doing so from the girl. It could not be discovered that he and Itachi were lurking around outside the village. Watch on the Kyuubi kid would tighten too much to get at him. The figure, a tell, hefty guy, had stopped the girl and was speaking to her in between mouthfuls of potato chips. He caught the words "Fire Temple" then "Asuma-sensei" in worried tones, and grinned. So Kakuzu had gone after those bounties anyway. Well, good for him, because it had just helped Kisame out a lot. Perhaps this fatass was from the ponytail girl's genin platoon. The boy glanced his way sharply just then, peering - almost... angrily? - into the leaves around Kisame, but finding nothing, he turned his attention back to the girl and kept talking. He said something about reinforcements and an exchange point, but Kisame was only half-listening. _Haha! Luck is with me after all!_ And indeed it was: Tubs was leaving now, in a completely different direction from the village, and for a wonder, the girl was going with him.

Bored now, Kisame travelled along the outskirts, staying a hundred or so metres inside the treeline and casting around with sharp senses for some new quarry to pick on. What he finally found was proof of a lucky day. Content to stay hidden and distant from the two jounin that were also there, Kisame watched from a mizubunshin with interest as a couple hundred of the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki trained a strange version of the Rasengan in pairs. It did not take long recognize that the oddness came from a feeble attempt at elementally recomposing the already spatially complexified attack. It was utterly flawed at the moment, but something like that could be extremely powerful if perfected. _Holy hell, has anyone ever even done both before!?_ What interested Kisame yet more though, was that every time the Nine Tails' chakra emerged, it was suppressed just as quickly by that new platoon leader who'd been assigned to the kid's team for that very purpose. _Still not working with the clever old demon fox yet, is he?_ This information, along with what else he might gather from watching Naruto-kun train, would make the capture much easier. Refusing to harmonize with his Bijuu made both the boy and the demon incredibly vulnerable, as there would be ways to play them against each other.

***

It didn't seem to matter one bit to this hot-headed girl-creature that she was trapped in an inescapable illusion, and one that was famed for its use to torture a person for the whole of three days all in an instant. Fixed to one of the crooked crosses that peppered the jagged landscape to the horizon in all directions, her glower was no less smoldering. If she was afraid, it sure didn't show. Or at least, it was smothered entirely by her hatred. _Could it be... my brother cast her love aside to hunt me down?_ A few moments before using Tsukuyomi, Pain had tried boring into his mind to deliver a message. Likely that the Three Tails had been caught and Itachi was to contribute his chakra to its extraction. But he'd forced Pain out before that order could come, ignoring the mild outrage that resulted from it as contact was severed. He was busy. Kisame could do the explaining. As always, he wondered why his partner wasn't the one to be contacted first instead. And as always he dismissed it with an offhand thought, _That's because Pain is stupid. _"Get it over with." the girl muttered darkly.

A smirk almost tugged up the corner of Itachi's mouth. _So brazen._ "What is your name?" As her frown deepened, he added with a hint of amusement, "Since it appears you know mine."

She raised her chin and spoke haughtily, "Haruno Sakura." He must have looked humored just then by this Sakura's precociousness, because her eyebrows somehow managed to draw down even further than they already were, creasing her endearingly girlish forehead slightly.

"Such a noble brow. So charming... I could kiss it."

Itachi did not have time to be shocked at his sudden words, for the girl, Sakura did something just as alarming. Her indignant stare faltered, then vanished in a widening of eyes rolling back, and she abruptly went unconscious, all in the space of a Tsukuyomi second. The eerie world of his genjutsu wilted around him as the subject slumped on the crucifix, and without thinking, Itachi moved to catch her in his arms before she could collide with the forest floor. Noonday sun through myriad leaves making tiny golden pools of light amidst the shade around them, he simply stared at her, trying to puzzle everything out. _Really, it's surprise after surprise with her._ He stayed like that for a time, and the sunlight changed from constant to fleeting as dark clouds rolled in.

When it began to rain, Itachi had finally decided what to do about her. Mangekyou he had deactivated as soon as he was finished with it, but his regular Sharingan remained. Taking a moment first to look up at the sky with his eyes held open against torrential downpour, he rubbed away the trickles of clotting blood that had run from them, then set to work. He began by confiscating Sakura's weapons, and anything else she might try using as one when she woke. It turned out to be a time-consuming task. Itachi noted admiringly as he searched what a fantastic array of poisons she carried. Her first-aid supplies were also quite extensive, most of which being safe enough to leave with her. And she kept kunai and shuriken holstered everywhere on her. Kunoichi never failed to make their captors rummage around in unsavory places. But Itachi looted the girl with careful indifference, no less businesslike than when he wound her up afterwards in wires he could control with his doujutsu, arms held fast to her sides from shoulder to wrist. Unceremoniously slinging the human bundle over his shoulder, he started for his camp in Shi no Mori, as swiftly as could be managed across branches already soaked slippery by the emptying skies.

* * *

-END CHAPTER II-

Again, please review! Good or bad, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Author's Note 01/23/09: Weeeell... back to the "In progress" state before the next release. It shouln't be _too_ long, since I have a lot of parts finished in rough draft, - and many of them pretty long - so all I have to do is finish the parts in between. That's pretty much the way I write.


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